Mario Rodwald and Ines Correia win first stop KTE 2011

Day 4 started with the Men’s and Women’s Double Eliminations to fight for winning the first stop of the Kitesurf Tour Europe 2011. In wind at around 20 knots and waves at about 2m being less chaotic than yesterday, Dutch riders Bram Bast and Jonno Scholte showed a great performance making their way up to round 6 when Bast faced Stefan Spiessberger from Austria and Scholte riding against German Stefan Permien.

In one of the best heats of the day, the riders showed spectacular action and in a close decision, Spiessberger and Scholte proceeded into next round. The Austrian was on fire that day and eliminated Sergey Borisov (Russia), Nils Wesch (Germany) and Jerrie van de Kop until meeting Seb Garat (France). In a clear decision, Seb proceeded into next round, leaving no chance to Stefan who could not keep us his power after the great performance in the tough conditions before.

In a rematch between Tijn van Esch (Netherlands) and Seb Garat, both riders were on fire with several tricks landed giving the judges a hard time to decide. Finally, Garat made his way to the final against local Mario Rodwald. However, the French could not show the same performance as against van Esch. Mario took the win and is now one of the top bets to become the European Champion in Freestyle.

In the women’s division, it was the day of English rider Hannah Whiteley who lost her first run yesterday and made it all the way up to semi finals of the Double Eliminations defeating Novotna (Estonia), de Jong (Netherlands), Jungo (Switzerland), Brill (Germany), Lygoe (Saint Lucia) and Litwin (Poland). After six powerful heats, Hannah had to pay tribute to the rough conditions and lost against Ines Correia from Portugal. Ines went into the final against yesterdays winner Michalina Laswkowska. Ines won the first final enforcing a superfinal. In the end, it was a better day for Correia and she took the win against Laskowska.

At 4.30pm, the racers entered the scene at average 20 knots and 3m waves. Four races gave the riders a hard time with John Heineken and the US-team dominating the field. Bryan Lake, Adam Koch and Sky Solbach followed Heineken with only Rolf van der Vlucht (Netherlands) and Julien Kerneur (France) trying to keep up and showing the European flag